Forgotten Again
by December21st
Summary: What’s the next thing you remember after all the things you’ve forgotten? ForgottenVerse.


"Forgotten Again"

By December

Rating: PG

Pairing: Dean / Jo

Warnings: None.

Summary: What's the next thing you remember after all the things you've forgotten? Sequel to "Forgotten" and "Such Interesting Neighbors."

He wakes. He's in a hospital room, so whatever happened must've been pretty bad. He realizes immediately that he's not alone -- he's sharing the room with an old man in the other bed, snoring softly into a bushy mustache, and a girl that's probably the old man's granddaughter. She looks about sixteen, with daffodil-yellow hair, sitting crosslegged in a chair between the two beds and studying a textbook. She's wearing jeans and ratty sneakers and a Led Zepplin tee-shirt two sizes too big for her.

He looks around as he wakes, trying to remember ... well, anything, really. But even simplest memory eludes him. His arm is in a cast, and a pair of lonely wires run from his chest to a machine that is softly cheeping. The teenager looks up from her book.

"Good, you're awake," she tells him, abandoning the book. He gives her a grin that should hide how worried he is, but she reaches forward to touch his hand anyhow.

"Let's see, I'm supposed to tell you that your name is Howard Krump -- I'm your daughter, Betty, by the way. You want me to go tell the nurse you're awake?" the teen pauses, waiting for instructions.

"Is it?" he asks. He's confused and trying to get his bearings, and he's not sure that having a nurse come in and quiz him will help. Unless she's cute, of course.

"Is it what? Oh, is your name Howard Krump? No, don't be silly, we're Winchesters, but that's not what it says on the insurance card. Don't worry about your memory getting smacked either, mom says you'll start to remember bits of things, and then more and more. Like an avalanche!" He has to smile at the girl's stream-of-consciousness chatter. She's way too young for him -- he knows it even though he couldn't tell you his age on a bet -- but she's comfortably familiar and he thinks maybe she reminds him of someone else.

"So how long until my memory..." he trails off, not sure he wants an answer.

She lights up like a candle. "Oh, totally back in like a day. It was this nasty witch - literally, she had a wart and everything - that thought if she made you forget you'd be helpless. Not the smartest idea in the history of ever. Until then you can grift the elephants and oh God I have to call!" She pulls something that's probably a cell phone out of her jeans and starts talking at a breakneck pace to someone who's apparently her mother, while he puzzles over her comment about elephants. Was that _supposed _to make sense?

The girl -- Betty? -- has finished her call. "They're on their way," she tells him, beaming. "We didn't think you'd wake up for another day, and mom had to go get Uncle Sam and Auntie Roo and the kids at the train station because airport security and Winchesters don't mix. Oh, and everyone sends their love and mom says the hospital's probably haunted but it's okay because I have protection but you're not to even think about going after any ghosts until tomorrow at the absolute earliest when you've got backup and I forgot did you still want me to get a nurse?" He's lying there trying to sort out her rambling sentence . (Or was it two sentences? He lost track.) He picks a word from her monologue almost at random.

"Protection?"

"Da-ad! Please! I may be a teenager, but I'm a Winchester first." She unhooks the clasp on a backpack sitting next to her chair, and starts pawing through the contents. "Okay, I've got about five pounds of salt, lockpicks, two wooden stakes, a power bar, a crucifix, about half of mom's stash of mystical herbs - you're supposed to drink some of this tea, by the way, a G.P.S., a hand mirror, extra flashlight batteries, an extra flashlight, a cap pistol – don't ask me why – and a crowbar. Mom didn't think I should carry a gun just in case hospital security started asking questions. Although how I'm supposed to explain the rest of this, I don't know. And I just have to say, this sucker is _heavy_," she comments, hefting the backpack.

"Do I normally hunt (that's the right word, he _knows_ it) ghosts in haunted hospitals?" he asks his daughter. Whose name is probably not Betty. She makes a noise letting him know that of course he does, dumb question, but she also explains.

"Yah, since you were little. Grandma Mary got killed by a pug-ugly, and Grandpa John got kinda mad about it, so he taught you and Uncle Sam how to hunt, and you guys and mom and Auntie Roo all taught me to hunt. So I'm named after her, her and mom's mom, and so is Thing One, just after your mom, of course, but it's her middle name because having two Mary Winchesters in the family would be way confusing. "

"Your name is Mary?" He's pretty sure he has it right.

"Yunh, Mary Ellen. Winchester. Oh, and don't you dare give me any more grief about my hair," she runs her hand through her short-cut bright yellow tresses. "The box made it look like spun gold, and I absolutely _hounded_ mom until she bought it for me, and it wasn't cheap, and it looks stag, but I have to wear it out."

He feels worn out just talking to her. But he's also feeling a sense of pride, and something that is almost certainly love. He's remembering emotions first. And there are layers of tragedy and concern and something's _missing_. No, not something. Someone.

So it's a good thing that someone comes in the door. There's a short blonde woman chatting animatedly with a tall brown-haired man in dark glasses. He doesn't know their names, but he knows them, and that's good enough.

Mary Ellen looks like her mother. The short blonde woman has an ugly scar running across her nose, but she's the most beautiful woman he's ever seen.

The tall man (is he blind? Yeah, he's probably blind) grins at him, genuinely pleased to see him ... er, to be there. Mary Ellen darts forward and hugs him tightly, while he ruffles her hair. She grins impishly and says "Dad, this is your wife, Jo, and your brother, Sam. Mom, Uncle Sam, I'd like to introduce Dean Wincheter."


End file.
